Excelsior
by DominiqueMorgenstern
Summary: Gansey, wild-Gansey, dares Ronan to a street-race and remembers an almost fatal evening with Blue - bluesey oneshot


Ronan was tracing a fingertip down Chainsaw's head and along her back, feeling the strong, slender bones beneath her feathers when Gansey announced, "You want to do this one last time?"

The instant he looked up, something was violently flung at him; he instinctively whipped out his hand to catch the airborne thing. The keys to his BMW thudded into his palm. He looked at them, up at Gansey. Down. Up. Waited.

Gansey proceeded to lift the Camaro's keys into the air, brows peaked expectantly. A supreme and unimaginable offering.

Ronan's voice was a whiplash. "Are you fucking with me?"

The smile on Gansey's face spelled the beginning of something; of everything. It struck Ronan as exalted and sinful and exquisite, all at the same time. If it chanced to call upon God, then all the host of heaven would have hurtled down to earth. It was the side of Gansey that would normally hide meekly in the shade, linking hands with that other magisterial part that still rung through Ronan whenever he remembered that incantation in the cave: wake up. Ronan could live in that smile.

Air rushed through Ronan's mouth, parting in shock. "Are you asking what I think you're asking?"

The smile became a full-blown grin. "Would you like me to put it in Latin for you?"

Ronan made a pathetic snort, doubting his ability to do so, but too distracted to put any malice in the noise. "Man, are you high?"

He nodded, slowly. "Very."

Ronan was already on his feet, walking over to him. There was no decision to make. There was only this: the thick flush of excitement, adrenaline blazing through him, the hyperreality of measuring the manic pulse of blood through his own veins. The anticipation of burned rubber and spilled petrol.

It was impossible, but as he neared Gansey, he quirked his head and peered into Gansey's eyes. Neatly, and with a flicker of annoyance, Gansey informed him, "Not of that kind." The way Gansey held himself was explosive. Feet apart, fingers drumming against his leg, his gaze keen, blood high in his cheeks, hair mussed. It occurred to Ronan, with some alarm, that Gansey smelled unlike himself – not like drugs – but it was a distant note of something that was strangely familiar. "Are we doing this or not, Lynch?"

"You do realise, right, that this is suicide? I'm gonna thrash your ass. But please, God, put some effort into it, okay? I have waited too fucking long for this to be over in two minutes."

"It won't be."

"You sure, old man?"

"Yes." He paused, and then declared, "You have never raced _me_. And you have never raced _me in my Camaro_."

They were poised in their cars at a stoplight, engines thundering, windows rolled down to let the chilly night air roll over them. It carried the freshness of rain; somewhere behind them, or somewhere in tomorrow, Cabeswater whispered and waited for them. Ronan's arm dangled lazily out the window, the car's door frame jittery beneath him. Across from him, Gansey had scrunched his sweater sleeves up around his elbows. He adjusted his wireframes, brows furrowed, then gripped the Pig's thin wheel punishingly, as if wrestling with it, the tendons in his forearm rigid under his skin. Ronan shouted over, "Are we counting this down, or what?"

Gansey called back, "After this," he paused for a moment, his face old and solemn as he looked out the windscreen, eyes wondering up at the stars. Ronan suddenly realised what it was that had smelled familiar, yet wrong on Gansey: it was Blue. Blue was what he'd smelled on him. When Gansey looked back towards Ronan, he said, "Excelsior."

The cars rocketed off the line, engines roaring joyously, and Ronan felt a grin split his face, his soul transcendent. This was a night he'd never forget.

–

The first hurdle was crucial. First to second gear could not be anything less than flawless. If you linger on the clutch, too slow sliding down the gearstick, too gentle on the acceleration, you might as well stall the thing and surrender.

But Gansey had grown into the very seams of this car; he could drive it dreaming, drive it blind, drive it altogether thoughtless and senseless and still never miss a beat.

The gears slid into and out of each other fluidly, the movements graceful and slippery, masterful, beneath his hand; the shifts from first, to second, to third, to fourth were glanced over in a matter of seconds. The gas pedal was against the floor. Gansey thought that he had been waiting years to allow himself this performance. The Pig stretched itself blissfully, wheels spinning faster and faster. Shooting ahead, edging past the BMW. This is what this car was made for.

It was not intention that charged the car forwards endlessly; it was hunger, it was want, it was blunt sickness and unfinished rapture that still inflamed him and destroyed him. Gansey was not driving to a finish line. He was driving for a cliff edge, and when he reached it, he wouldn't stop. He wouldn't stop until he was flying.

The last gear, now: the gearstick, slick under his hand as he shoved up, right, and up again, reminded him of his palms spreading over Blue's bare, warm thighs, afraid to pull her too close, her breathing in his ear. He had never thought the sensation of her fingers on the back of his neck, scraping up through his hair, would be so astonishingly pleasurable.

As he'd driven back to Monmouth, he'd thought that he could ride out this thing inside him all night. And so here he was. He looked across at Ronan, falling further and further behind, with a smirk.

They'd agreed, _just to touch. It can't hurt…just to touch_. They both knew this was a lie of the worst kind. He'd leaned in, and she'd clapped a hand over her mouth, shaking her head, but Gansey had begged, "We have to know, Blue." So when their mouths touched, the sensitive, soft flesh of Blue's inner bottom lip barely grazing over his, just once – and – had it even been there? It had not been enough. The need to go further was crippling. Desire no longer bloomed dreamily in front of him; it commanded him. Blue jerked back with a jagged cry. Squeezing his eyes shut, he'd plunged his face into the base of her neck, heaving hot breaths against her skin, hands fisting in the sheets. Her pulse pounded against his browbone. He swallowed, every part of him shaking. After a while, she'd started stroking back his hair, murmuring, _it's alright, it's alright_. He blinked, and thought: I need to get away. Before I ask her to do it again. Before I lose myself.

The Camaro, glorious and giving, had long pulled away from the BMW. It streamed ahead, untamed and unmoored. The roads were deserted, and Gansey lifted his hands from the wheel.

He parked up at Monmouth later, leaning against the edge of the ticking hood, and calmly chewed a mint leaf as a cold blue sunrise gleamed at the fringes of the horizon. He wondered if Blue was sleeping, imagined her head on the pillow, her dark eyelashes against her cheek. He pondered the heaviness of his own eyes. The BMW suddenly came screeching up beside him. Ronan got out, slammed the door shut with an almighty force that should have shattered something, stormed up to him, and shouted, "I WANT A REMATCH."


End file.
